Life Labs

United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) created Life Labs in 2010 as a new research and development center to tackle problems facing people with disabilities by creating technology based solutions that are cost-effective, replicable and lend themselves to dynamic partnership with business, academia, “do it yourselfers” and technologists.

How It Works

Modeled after the successful live-over-the-web prototyping and experimenting of others such as Google Labs and Sunlight Labs, Life Labs organizes various paid and visiting technology fellows to collaborate on tough problems that can yield to technology innovation. Because the aim is to directly improve individuals' lives and increase their access to the wider world and marketplace, Life Labs does not restrict itself to websites, but additionally explores the world of increasingly affordable hardware hacking (physical computing), mobile devices and desktop fabrication. Life Labs Fellows conduct their work open source, making it openly available for re-use by other individuals, hackers, non-profits, businesses and governments.

Planned Outcomes

While the most basic measurement of success will be to improve the lives of people with disabilities, UCP has also outlined the following outcomes:

• Experimentation, working prototypes and innovation.
• A community of leading technologists with and without disabilities who have increased accessibility in commercial and non-commercial goods and services.
• An online record of what works and what does not and what is being learned.
• Participation in social networks and Web 2.0 projects to spread accessibility solutions.